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How does ‘class-passing’ actually work?

theguardian.com

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Re: How does ‘class-passing’ actually work?

#161

Post by notabee »

Veelox wrote: post #33
staunch wrote: post #3

> In the UK, class consciousness is woven into the national identity. In America, however, people often like to pretend that a class system doesn’t really exist. But, of course, it does. This is the most insidious part. The media in the US has historically been 100% controlled by rich people, and all major media still is. The evil rich people figured out that if you start a gender and race war among the 99%, you can…

>But as long as 70%+ of Americans are wallowing in economic depression there will be no lasting social progress. Just the way most rich people hope it stays. What definition are you using for economic depression?

Here's just a passing figure for starters: 63% of Americans can't handle a $500 or $1000 emergency expense. Now, if you're willing to actually enquire into this there are plenty of additional dismal statistics about average American life, regardless of the dizzying heights of stock prices. https://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2016/01/06/63-of-...

Re: How does ‘class-passing’ actually work?

#162

Post by dsacco »

balthasar wrote: post #104
dsacco wrote: post #38

The first step to understanding the class system is to differentiate between class and wealth. Class has very little to do with wealth, and it is mostly determined by your upbringing, mannerisms, profession, lifestyle and network. A high net worth is helpful but insufficient for gaining entry to the higher class. It can also work against you, if you’re too visible with your money and spend it frivolously. For example…

I find it extremely boring to fetishize the immaterial and neurotic divisions of the bourgeois.

I don't "fetishize" any of this, but I'll grant you that efforts to categorize and classify things can be excessively boring :). What's fascinating to one person is boring to another!

Re: How does ‘class-passing’ actually work?

#163

Post by dizzystar »

ambicapter wrote: post #138
dizzystar wrote: post #82

This article resonates with me on many levels. I went from below $10/hr to 5x that and never experienced anything in between. The struggle is huge, and I keep having to look inside myself to figure out what "my people" is supposed to mean. A huge different that's obvious to me is the language we use. I often wonder why no one's mother didn't fill the these people's mouth with dawn liquid soap and slap the child silly…

> As a real example, we often get articles on Hacker News that discusses the best way to hire, best way to land a job, best way to self-learn, and so on. It took me years to realize that these articles were all shaded in a heavy fog of bullshit, and it took me many years to realize that the posters who upvote and share these articles are not only aware of the heavy fog, but are able to read though the fog. If I was a…

Nearly every bit of advice you read on interviews and how to get a job never happens in the real world.

You can imagine how scary it is to read all the super tough questions, going to the whiteboard, having to discuss passion projects, needing a solid github profile, knowing algorithms, data structures, strange math, and on and on.

You start interviewing and you see that none of the above happens 99% of the time. You wasted 2 years learning a bunch of stuff when you really should have been interviewing six months after writing your first line of code.

Re: How does ‘class-passing’ actually work?

#164

Post by dionidium »

dizzystar wrote: post #82

This article resonates with me on many levels. I went from below $10/hr to 5x that and never experienced anything in between. The struggle is huge, and I keep having to look inside myself to figure out what "my people" is supposed to mean. A huge different that's obvious to me is the language we use. I often wonder why no one's mother didn't fill the these people's mouth with dawn liquid soap and slap the child silly…

> "The struggle is huge, and I keep having to look inside myself to figure out what "my people" is supposed to mean."

For me, the weirdest part is the way in which the upper-middle class people I now associate and work with talk about "my people" (i.e. the working-class folks I grew up with). They mythologize them as the noble, hard-working, salt of the earth, when in reality, they clearly don't like most of their habits, their religion, their tastes, their opinions, their language, or much else about them. Poor and working-class people are described in archetypes, stereotypes, and as abstract ideas. But very little said matches what I know about actual poor people. They are always -- always -- praised when spoken of in the abstract. But when the conversation drifts toward the specific, it's pretty clear that they're not really big fans.

I find myself simultaneously defending the behaviors of the working class while also walking upper-class liberals back a few steps on just how noble and hard-working -- they're always described as hard-working -- most actual poor people really are. They're just people.

Re: How does ‘class-passing’ actually work?

#165

Post by svachalek »

coldtea wrote: post #129
brandonmenc wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Talking specifically about money (how much high-ticket items specifically cost, how much anyone specifically makes) is gauche. This is not just a rich people rule. I grew up solidly middle class, and you could hear a pin drop if you asked someone in the room how much they were paid or how much that engagement ring cost.

That would be upper middle class. (Not to mention in the US even coal miners would describe themselves as "middle class" these days, nobody is "working class" anymore).

Maybe a regional thing then? Or as you hinted you're talking about a different sort of middle class. I grew up in a large family with a single government income, went to school with a lot of kids that were poorer than me (and some richer of course), and so on, and I can't remember a situation where it was just "ok" to talk about anything that made someone's finances explicit.

Re: How does ‘class-passing’ actually work?

#166

Post by philipkglass »

saget wrote: post #45
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It really is true that there are unspoken codes and mores to follow, and it was uncomfortable when I didn't Any examples spring to mind?

How you dress is very important. Knowing enough about current events and having your own, thoughtful opinion about them. Knowing a number of books and using them in conversation. Rules on when to be blunt are different. Never order a burger at a restaurant. I could go on but it's a hard thing to summarize. (source: was middle/lower class, now have many 1% friends)

The rules about books, food, and current events could just as well come from "how to fit in with graduate students in the humanities (and sometimes other disciplines)." Which might explain why I and my friends never "coded" as poor when I was in graduate school, even though I was technically living below the federal poverty line for a few years.

Re: How does ‘class-passing’ actually work?

#167

Post by praptak »

_alias wrote: post #135
dizzystar wrote: post #82

This article resonates with me on many levels. I went from below $10/hr to 5x that and never experienced anything in between. The struggle is huge, and I keep having to look inside myself to figure out what "my people" is supposed to mean. A huge different that's obvious to me is the language we use. I often wonder why no one's mother didn't fill the these people's mouth with dawn liquid soap and slap the child silly…

Do you have a good heuristic for bullshit detection? Anything to look out for?

Enumerating badness and blacklisting it is a bad approach in security. I believe that this applies to detecting bullshit. It comes in many forms, including those that make you believe you are cutting through bullshit.

Better form your own set of core non-bullshit beliefs and work from that.

Re: How does ‘class-passing’ actually work?

#168

Post by Helmet »

balthasar wrote: post #146
Helmet wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Class distinction and hierarchy are precisely the sort of social mechanisms that convince people that there exists alternatives to certain modes of living (class aspiration).

What they are going to create a new class? Move up to the next one? Class mobility is a fallacy that was invented to support the hierarchy. Its not an alternative system in any sense.

> Move up to the next one?

Yes

> Class mobility is a fallacy

This is patently false. Social mobility is entirely possible, although it has gotten harder since the 1980's, but that wasn't your claim.

> that was invented to support the hierarchy

The hierarchy doesn't need "support". Class and social hierarchy has been observed in every culture since time immemorial. The radical and unfounded claim is the notion that we can "remove" it in any meaningful sense.

> Its not an alternative system in any sense.

Moving into a new social class impacts your life in every conceivable way, from the way you speak, dress, behave, to the job you perform. On an individual level, it absolutely would resemble "systemic" changes to both one's material and immaterial life.

Re: How does ‘class-passing’ actually work?

#169

Post by malvosenior »

20180201 wrote: post #61
malvosenior wrote: post #28

As someone who's navigated their way from poor->middle class->upper middle class I can give a bit of perspective that I rarely see mentioned in these articles... One of the biggest barriers to moving up in class is the people in your starter class. Family, friends, neighbors... almost all of them will start to get very aggressive with you if you seriously try to better yourself. I remember being accused of using too…

birth limits you to upper middle class. you can be fabulously wealthy, but if you did not have the upbringing, you can not claim it. however, if you are wealthy, you can buy an upper class lifestyle, and your children will be upper class, while you will not be. in other words, their peers that they grew up with will accept them as upper class (meaning they had an upper-class upbringing), while their parents still con…

This is in line with my experiences.

Re: How does ‘class-passing’ actually work?

#170

Post by [deleted] »

killjoywashere wrote: post #47
ggg9990 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s more that the Internet can enable the kind of coordination that a mass movement to revoke power needs.

Oil could have enabled that kind of coordiation too, how'd that work out? For a mass movement, you need lots of leaders (of people) to band together and agree to steer the ship in a specific direction.

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